Amazon helped popularize smart home devices and smart speakers with the original Echo and the now-famous digital assistant known as Alexa, but today you have a bunch of options from several different companies, each with their own pros and cons. ?

So how do you figure out the difference between them and pick the best smart speaker for your needs.

Our favorites, the Amazon Echo Dot and the Google Nest Mini, are both awesome smart devices.

Both Google and Amazon have very capable smart speakers at affordable prices.

The $200 Sonos One allows you to pair two units to play stereo sound or multiroom audio, but even a single speaker sounds awesome playing a wide variety of music genres and it costs significantly less than other smart speakers with premium sound quality such as the Google Home Max and the Apple HomePod.

Better yet, the Sonos One has both Alexa and Google Assistant built in -- simply pick which one you'd like to use for your voice commands during setup.

Add it up and the Sonos One is a great-sounding, reasonably priced smart speaker that can fit into households centered around Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri.

Amazon used to be the unquestioned ruler of the smart speaker world, but Google has done an admirable job of catching up its digital assistant in the sound race.

At this point, picking between the lowest-price smart devices from the two companies -- the Amazon Echo Dot or the Google Nest Mini -- comes down to splitting hairs.

Google Assistant now has almost as many capabilities as Alexa, making the $50 Google Nest Mini a solid alternative to the Amazon Echo Dot in your quest to find the best smart speaker.

Plus, Google Assistant is a little smarter voice assistant than Alexa.

It responds more flexibly to voice commands if you can't remember the exact name of your smart home devices, and Google's grouped commands, called routines, work with more types of smart devices than Amazon's similar routines.

Google Assistant can recognize multiple voices, so it'll give you and your spouse different answers if you each ask about your calendars, though Alexa can now do this too.

Overall, Google still has the edge in assistant intelligence, and the Google Nest Mini is a great, low-cost way to take advantage of those smarts.

Best for smart home controls.

Deciding which assistant you want at the center of your smart home is a tough call.

Both Alexa and Google Assistant work with lots of devices.

While Google Assistant is a little smarter, Alexa works with more smart home devices and makes setup with voice commands easier. .

Ultimately, we'll give the smart-home edge in the best smart speaker category to Amazon thanks to Alexa and the $150 Echo Plus.

Thanks to Siri, you can also use an Apple HomePod to control your smart home products with the sound of your voice, ask for help as you would with the other smart speakers and answer phone calls coming to your iPhone

As for the smart home, you're limited to devices that work with Apple's smart home platform, HomeKit

It has decent battery life and solid sound quality, and it has Google Assistant built in, like the Google Nest Mini

Read our breakdown of Alexa versus Google Assistant versus Siri if you'd like to learn each one's pros and cons and decide by platform

Note that neither the original Amazon Echo nor the original Google Home made an appearance above because you can get the same capabilities for less with the smaller (Dot and Mini) versions

Amazon and Google both have several options in this booming smart display category of smart home tech. 

There are also lots of third-party devices with Alexa built in, and a growing number of third-party speakers with Google Assistant

The TicHome Mini is another, more compact choice if you want a portable smart speaker with Google Assistant

You can also buy add-ons from a company called Ninety7 if you want to make your Google or Amazon smart speaker portable. 

Samsung even has a much-delayed smart speaker, the Galaxy Home with Samsung's assistant Bixby. 

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